America is Not a Racist Country
Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com
This article originally appeared in Eagle Rising.
I was born in 1945 in Los Angeles. Some might say I grew up in a part of the country that was spared racial segregation as it existed in the deep South. That would not be completely accurate. In those days, black people basically resided in South Central LA and some pockets of Venice on the West Side. We were segregated by neighborhood.
My mother was from North Carolina, and I grew up thinking of it as my second home. My mom and dad would take me back there every couple of summers to visit her family. Actually, it was usually just my mom who took me. I remember when I was still a small boy and we were driving past a restaurant that had a sign on the window reading, "Whites only." Even at my tender age, the sign caught my attention. That was the North Carolina of the 1950s. That it existed anywhere in the US said something about the entire country. It is fair to say that America at that time was, indeed, a racist country. It was most severe in the South, but to one degree or another, it was everywhere.
Then came the 1960s and the Civil Rights movement. It was a time of marches, race riots, Martin Luther King, and ultimately reform. It was not just a reform of our laws but a change in the way white people thought of black people. The greatness of Martin Luther King and those who worked with him was that they struck a cord in the psyche of white Americans. One of the things that makes this country great is that when people really see injustice in front of them-true injustice- they will correct it. Thus, in my lifetime, I have seen a transformation in this country that is of historic proportions, a change that few countries and few people would be capable of in a period of a couple of generations.
It is painfully true that many black Americans have been left behind in the inner cities and constitute an economic underclass for lack of a better expression. Does the legacy of slavery and segregation still play a role in this? To some extent, yes. However, I think there are other factors more important.
Larry Elder, a black radio talk show host who is nationally syndicated, believes that the biggest problem facing black America today is the lack of a stable family and the absence of the father. He points out that in the worst days of Jim Crow, the black illegitimate birth rate was about 25%. Today, it is over 70%. White racism, according to Elder, is so far down the list of problems facing blacks today that it is insignificant. I agree though my perception as a white is always going to be different from that of black folks.
But how to explain this odd statistic? There is only one plausible reason I can come up with. Our government leaders in the 1960s, trying to do the right thing, instituted a system of welfare that all but destroyed the incentive to have a stable two-parent family and for people to wait to have children until they could support them. Instead, welfare encouraged the idea of having children early and out of wedlock. The government would take care of the expenses. Sub-standard housing in the inner city? The answer was subsidized housing projects that became urban nightmares.
And where has all of this brought us? Today, we are consumed with Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and other young black men who for one reason or another have gotten involved in deadly encounters with cops and died as a result. The black community is angry. The cops are being accused of being racist murderers. The justice system is accused of being unfair to blacks, which results in a disproportionate number of blacks in our prisons. Did they commit the crimes they were convicted of? That seems irrelevant. We have protests, marches, riots and now two dead NYPD officers. Never mind that there is not one shred of evidence that Brown or Garner were singled out by the police because they were black.
Let me come directly to the point: America today is not a racist country. Are there racists walking around? Yes, but they come in all colors. The phenomena that we see in certain cities like Los Angeles where black gang members and Mexican gang members are shooting it out on the streets against each other and continuing that warfare in California prisons, is not because of white racism. Black on black murders and Hispanic on Hispanic murders cannot be blamed on white racism. And shame on all of us when we ignore these murders to focus on the relatively rare cases where minorities are shot by cops almost always in circumstances that are justified as just happened last night in Berkeley, Missouri a St Louis neighborhood. If Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton want to lead marches, they should be marching in Chicago, where black on black murder is at a deadly high. Where are the protests against that?
America is still a country with racial issues and racial divisions. But America today is not a racist country.
Max Blumenthal's Despicable Rant Against Sniper Chris Kyle
Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com
Hat tip American Thinker
“I haven’t seen American Sniper, but correct me if I’m wrong: An occupier mows down faceless Iraqis but the real victim is his anguished soul,” Blumenthal wrote smugly on his Twitter account. “[T]he whole film’s appeal seems to derive from the latent racism that led America into Iraq.”
-Max Blumenthal
Max Blumenthal is a writer and son of ex-Clinton hatchet man Sid Blumenthal. Young Max has been featured on this site in the past. Most of the time he is making common cause with the pro-Palestinian movement and demonizing the Jewish state of Israel, which he hates with a passion that borders on the abnormal.
I have often noted that so many of Israel's most fierce critics also hate the US as well- even if they are Americans. Now Blumenthal has confirmed that he belongs in that group with his tweets attacking the film, American Sniper, its protagonist, Chris Kyle, as well as our country. The below article is by Rick Moran in American Thinker.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/12/max_blumenthal_america_sniper_chris_kyle_was_just_a_popular_mass_murderer.html
First of all, it would certainly never occur to Blumenthal to do what Kyle did-put on the uniform of his country and fight to defend it. Yet here he is attacking a brave patriot who is no longer here to defend himself. It is beyond sickening. Maybe he should go and actually watch the film he is attacking. He might learn what a real man is like.
Ten Max Blumenthals could not make one Chris Kyle.
The NY Shooter-The Motive is Known
Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com
So now it's official. It was pretty obvious from the moment it happened, but now there is no doubt. The killer of two NYPD cops today was out to get revenge for Michael Brown and Eric Garner.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/12/20/2-nypd-cops-shot-in-car-critically-injured/
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/12/21/blood-on-many-hands-police-union-president-slams-de-blasio-after-cops-killing/
Beyond the tragedy itself, New York is in a state of crisis as the police force has literally and figuratively turned its back on the city's leftist mayor Bill de Blasio, who just a few days ago told the citizens that they should fear their own police-the same police who gave their lives on 9-11 when they and firemen rushed into the Twin Towers to save their fellow citizens. You can view the video where the cops turn their backs on de Blasio as we walks through the hospital below.
http://pix11.com/2014/12/20/video-nypd-officers-turn-away-from-mayor-de-blasio-as-he-enters-police-presser/
If De Blasio has blood on his hands for helping stoke the fires, others do as well. In the past days and weeks, President Obama and Attorney General Holder have spoken out on the Brown and Garner cases in ways that were highly critical of the police in Ferguson and New York. Never mind that grand juries in both cases composed of bi-racial jurors decided that no charges were merited.
Everyone who took part in the violent demonstrations where officers were attacked on the Brooklyn Bridge has blood on their hands. Those who marched through New York chanting, 'What do we want?" "Dead Cops. "When do we want it?" Now," also have blood on their hands.
But if De Blasio, Obama and Holder have blood on their hands, Al Sharpton has blood all over his tailor made suit. Once again, this despicable man has stoked the fires and incited violence with his demonstrations and chants of, "No justice-no peace." How this man has persevered through the decades amid all the incitements, the phony accusations, the slander, the income tax problems, Crown Hts.etc., I cannot fathom. And here he is with his own show on MSNBC and most recently a guest at the White House where he is included as one of those who will solve the problems of race and policing in America. He is the one that the CEO of Sony reached out to for absolution after her tasteless e-mail remarks about Obama. It is beyond sickening.
And read the words of these poseurs after they have contributed to the wave of violence against our police that has now culminated in the deaths of two officers.
"Two brave men won't be going home to their loved ones tonight, and for that, there is no justification," Obama said in a statement while vacationing with his family in Hawaii. "The officers who serve and protect our communities risk their own safety for ours every single day - and they deserve our respect and gratitude every single day."
(Now you say it.)
"Our nation must always honor the valor -- and the sacrifices -- of all law enforcement officers with a steadfast commitment to keeping them safe," Holder said. "This means forging closer bonds between officers and the communities they serve, so that public safety is not a cause that is served by a courageous few, but a promise that's fulfilled by police officials and citizens working side by side."
(Talk about straddling the fence.)
"I have spoken to the Garner family and we are outraged by the early reports of the police killed in Brooklyn today," civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton said in a statement. "Any use of the names of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, in connection with any violence or killing of police, is reprehensible and against the pursuit of justice in both cases."
(Translation: Don't blame us.)
"We're all in this together," said de Blasio to a group of cops in the hospital. (One answered, "No we aren't.")
Words. Empty hollow words by men who should have been supporting their police instead of throwing them under the bus while mobs raged.
And I'd like to know where Chief Bill Bratton is in all this. How he can stand by silently while the mayor trashes his officers is beyond me. In my mind, he should resign in protest.
To all of the people I mentioned above, those with names and those whose names we don't know, I say....
Are you proud?
SONY Caves to N Korea
Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com
And where is our president?
For those of you who may not know,. Sony Pictures in Culver City, California sits on the site of the old MGM Studio lot. I know this because my father used to work at MGM.
Today, it has just been announced that in the wake of cyber terror threats to hit US theatres with 9-11 attacks if the film, "The Interview" is shown, many theatres have cancelled plans to show the film, which was set to debut on Christmas Day. Now Sony Pictures has cancelled the Christmas debut.
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/12/17/us-government-saw-interview-approved-theaters-upping-security/
As we suspected all along, it also now appears that thebthreat comes out of North Korea.
And where is President Obama? He is too busy announcing the re-establishment of relations with Cuba.
What comes next? Do we cancel showings of films like, "American Sniper" if ISIS threatens to strike our theatres that show it?
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com
And where is our president?
For those of you who may not know,. Sony Pictures in Culver City, California sits on the site of the old MGM Studio lot. I know this because my father used to work at MGM.
Today, it has just been announced that in the wake of cyber terror threats to hit US theatres with 9-11 attacks if the film, "The Interview" is shown, many theatres have cancelled plans to show the film, which was set to debut on Christmas Day. Now Sony Pictures has cancelled the Christmas debut.
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/12/17/us-government-saw-interview-approved-theaters-upping-security/
As we suspected all along, it also now appears that thebthreat comes out of North Korea.
And where is President Obama? He is too busy announcing the re-establishment of relations with Cuba.
What comes next? Do we cancel showings of films like, "American Sniper" if ISIS threatens to strike our theatres that show it?
ISIS Supporters in the US
Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com
Yesterday, it was an ISIS sympathizer who took hostages and killed two in a Sydney cafe. It's just a matter of time before a similar attack happens here.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/12/16/lure-isis-feds-catching-more-americans-trying-to-aid-terror-groups-in-iraq/?intcmp=latestnews
Every Western country, and I include Australia in that group, has a number of its citizens or residents fighting with ISIS in Iraq and Syria. In some cases, it is a number in the dozens. With other countries, it may be in the hundreds, such as the UK and France. ISIS has already sent out the call to its sympathizers in the West that they should attack in their home countries whenever they can as lone wolves. It has happened in Canada and other countries. I expect in the coming year, we will experience several such attacks in the US. The FBI has been doing a good job of stopping several of them before they could attack. Some, however, are going to slip through the net. Most of the people we need to worry about are ones we allowed to enter this country from parts of the world where Islamic violence and intolerance are running rampant. Some are native-born converts to Islam. The common thread, however, always comes back to Islam notwithstanding the never ending claims that this all has nothing to do with Islam. It is a claim that has become laughable. Not discussing these truths in the name of political correctness will not protect us from terrorism.
Secure borders anyone?
Wolverines from Oz
This one is a bit personal.
I have several friends in Australia and these are friendships that have been built over time through social media and through here. There is no need to say anything else. Australia would be on my very short list of places to consider for a move, a place to bail out to, as so to say. No, I am not going any place YET nor can the liberalistas get rid of me that easily. Scotland might be another destination and there is one in Europe. As fluid as things are becoming for me here in the hinterlands of Poverty With A View, otherwise known as Central POORegon, bum FOOK Egypt, middle of nowhere, splatsville, you just never know and neither do I, come to think of it. Going off onto the siding here, back to the mainline. Sorry about that.
Those who I do know from Australia are true, straight and stalwart. They are LOYAL, HONEST, TRUSTWORTHY, MORAL and stand by their friends which includes me. They are patriots to the core and would think nothing of standing in harms way with you or to save you and yours. They love freedom, cannot stand illegal immigration in any way, are fierce warriors to their core, know the dangers all to well from Islam and sharia law. All too well do they know of Islam and now, so do their many more Aussies know about the horror show that is Islam.
The post is from the Treehouse and I will let this stand on it's own as these brave heroes stood against this monster fueled from and by the bowels of Islam.
Thanks to Nick and Gary for carrying the water for me here as I try to put all the nuts and bolts back on the engine, getting said engine hitting on all 8 cylinders. Last year has just been a bit on the hellish side. PatriotUSA
****************
Wolverine Blood – Incredible Bravery – All The Australian Hostages Made Simultaneous Break For Exits To End Siege…
(Via Telegraph) AS HIS eyes started to close around 2am today, the hostages inside Lindt Cafe in Martin Place realised this may be their best chance to escape their armed captor.
After 17 hours, fake sheik Man Haron Monis began to nod off when the 12 remaining hostages staged what in police parlance is a “bomb burst”. They all ran together for the exit.
In those vital last seconds, Monis “came too and realised what was going on,” sources close to the siege have revealed to The Daily Telegraph.
With his shotgun already in his hands, he began shooting. Continue reading →
Source is here.
Tags: Australian Terrorist attack, Islam, Sharia law, Muslim terrorism, Jihad, Global Islamic Jihad, Lindt Cafe Martin Place, Katrina Dawson, Tori Johnson. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!
I have several friends in Australia and these are friendships that have been built over time through social media and through here. There is no need to say anything else. Australia would be on my very short list of places to consider for a move, a place to bail out to, as so to say. No, I am not going any place YET nor can the liberalistas get rid of me that easily. Scotland might be another destination and there is one in Europe. As fluid as things are becoming for me here in the hinterlands of Poverty With A View, otherwise known as Central POORegon, bum FOOK Egypt, middle of nowhere, splatsville, you just never know and neither do I, come to think of it. Going off onto the siding here, back to the mainline. Sorry about that.
Those who I do know from Australia are true, straight and stalwart. They are LOYAL, HONEST, TRUSTWORTHY, MORAL and stand by their friends which includes me. They are patriots to the core and would think nothing of standing in harms way with you or to save you and yours. They love freedom, cannot stand illegal immigration in any way, are fierce warriors to their core, know the dangers all to well from Islam and sharia law. All too well do they know of Islam and now, so do their many more Aussies know about the horror show that is Islam.
The post is from the Treehouse and I will let this stand on it's own as these brave heroes stood against this monster fueled from and by the bowels of Islam.
Thanks to Nick and Gary for carrying the water for me here as I try to put all the nuts and bolts back on the engine, getting said engine hitting on all 8 cylinders. Last year has just been a bit on the hellish side. PatriotUSA
****************
Wolverine Blood – Incredible Bravery – All The Australian Hostages Made Simultaneous Break For Exits To End Siege…
~ Brave and Brilliant Strategy ~
(Via Telegraph) AS HIS eyes started to close around 2am today, the hostages inside Lindt Cafe in Martin Place realised this may be their best chance to escape their armed captor.
After 17 hours, fake sheik Man Haron Monis began to nod off when the 12 remaining hostages staged what in police parlance is a “bomb burst”. They all ran together for the exit.
In those vital last seconds, Monis “came too and realised what was going on,” sources close to the siege have revealed to The Daily Telegraph.
With his shotgun already in his hands, he began shooting. Continue reading →
Source is here.
Tags: Australian Terrorist attack, Islam, Sharia law, Muslim terrorism, Jihad, Global Islamic Jihad, Lindt Cafe Martin Place, Katrina Dawson, Tori Johnson. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!
The Attack in Sydney Ends
The hostage incident in Sydney has ended. The gunman is dead as is at least one innocent person. There are wounded.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/12/15/sydney-siege-five-hostages-escape-police-contact-gunman/
A couple of thoughts to add to the details that are now known. Not knowing Australian law, I don't know why this Iranian immigrant was allowed to remain in the country and/or why he was not in custody on charges of being involved in the murder of his ex-wife. Suffice to say he was well-known to the authorities. His motive, in spite of what some authorities were saying in the past hours after the Shehada flag was displayed in the Lindt cafe window, was clear. He was on an act of jihad. Whether he had hard links to ISIS or was one of the "lone wolves" ISIS has called upon to attack whenever they can in the West ( I am including Australia in the "West" here.) is unknown and perhaps, academic.
In the wake of this incident, some Australians have come forth and offered to escort Muslims around to allay their fears of backlash against Muslims. That is highly commendable. I suspect and hope that it will not be necessary. I know the Australian people are better than that. I don't expect them to lash out at innocent Muslims. Australian does have a highly radicalized Muslim element who have talked about publicly beheading people. The police are investigating that as we speak.
In my own opinion, the problem is not really peaceful and tolerant Muslims who are trying to live their lives and are willing to respect others. However, there is a problem with the ideology of Islam far and beyond the manner in which they worship God every day. In the meantime, this incident has surely awakened millions of more people to that reality.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali Lectured on Islam by Joe Biden!
Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com
"Let me tell you a thing or two about Islam."
- Joe Biden to Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Hat tip Washington Examiner and Jihad Watch
You really have to read to near the end of this article about Muslim apostate and Islam-critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali, where she describes her meeting with Joe Biden, who tried to explain to her that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam.
"Hell, I was circumcised when I was kid too. That's no big f----' deal."
The problem with Joe Biden is that he has always considered himself to be the smartest person in the room. He displayed this time after time when he was a senator and holding hearings on this and that. The truth of the matter is that Joe Biden is a complete fool. When you make a statement like that to a woman who has lived her life in fear because of her apostasy from and criticism of Islam, you prove once and for all that you are a fool. Had Ms Ali wished to continue the conversation with this boob, she could have shown him this picture (below) of Dutch film maker Theo Van Gogh, with whom she produced a film critical of Islam's treatment of women.
"Mr Biden, let me tell you a thing or two about Islam."
Hillary Clinton's Latest Verbal Gaffe
Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com
"Smart Power"
"And I empathize with you!"
This is another sterling example why Hillary Clinton is unfit to be our commander in chief. In her latest speaking gig (I wonder how much she got paid for this one.) she said that we must show empathy and respect for our enemies' point of view.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/12/05/clinton-says-america-should-empathize-with-its-enemies/
Can you imagine FDR or Harry Truman speaking like this about Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan during WW II?
Naturally, she is referring primarily to Islamist extremists because, after all, we mustn't offend Muslims. Who knows? Maybe she is also referring to Vladimir Putin and Russia. At any rate, this is another harbinger of further American weakness if she ever gets into the White House.
The Perils of Being Pro-Israel on Campus
Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com
Hat tip Legal Insurrection
Legal Insurrection, a blog by Cornell Law Professor William Jacobson, has a good article on the dilemma faced by pro-Israel students on campus: Fight or flight. There are two videos. The first shows students describing the thuggery and intimidation they receive at the hands of pro-Palestinian supporters on campus. The second has recent video from encounters at Cornell.
http://legalinsurrection.com/2014/11/being-pro-israel-on-campus-fight-or-flight-spoiler-alert-fight/
These outrages, of course, could not go on if universities had administrators with an ounce of courage. Sadly, they do not. Secondly, these thugs are more often than not inspired and encouraged by leftist anti-Israel professors who have indoctrinated them in the classroom and at campus speaking events. It is a sad commentary in our universities today that places of learning have become places of indoctrination and intimidation.
And where are the national Jewish organizations that should be speaking out about these outrages and pounding on the desks of university presidents demanding an end to anti-Semitism and bullying of Jewish students on campus? They are missing in action. With the exception of a handful like the Zionist Organization of America, Stand With Us, and CAMERA, they are missing in action. Other organizations like Hillel, the Jewish Federation, and the Anti-Defamation League are afraid to upset the apple cart on campus. In the case of the first two, they are too embedded with the university and too dependent on same in order to operate on campus. They are also afraid that Jewish students will decide to attend other schools if their university is known for anti-Semitic agitation. The ADL will not complain about anti-Semitism when it comes from Islamic sources. It all adds up to a perfect storm.
What is needed is that groups like Students for Justice in Palestine, various Muslim Student Association chapters, radical professors on their soapboxes, gutless Jewish organizations, and university administrators need to be exposed to the community. Furthermore, it is time for campus police to cease their policies of "low profile" anytime a volatile situation is taking place on campus. The campus should be a safe place for all, and those that make it anything else should be removed from the campus.
Was it Something I Said, Professor?
Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com
Note: I did not videotape the below event, and my writing is based on my handwritten notes.
On Monday, I attended an event at UC Irvine sponsored by the UCI Center for Global Conflict Studies. The speakers were UC Irvine professor Mark LeVine and former Swedish ambassador Mathias Mossberg. Both of them have co-edited a new book that puts forth a rather bizarre proposal to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That is not a two-state solution, not a one-state solution, but a parallel state solution. ("One Land, Two States:Israel as Palestine as Two States").
The presentation was supposed to be accompanied by a power point presentation, but it never came off since apparently neither LeVine or Mossberg knew how to operate the power point. An appeal was sent out to students in the audience to get it sorted out, but to make a long story short, the power point never happened.
At any rate, as Mossberg explained it, the basic points of the parallel states plan are that:
The state would respond to people as opposed to the state.
Free travel in the territories.
There would be two presidents, two parliaments, and everybody would have to cooperate.
There would be a joint external security force.
The different economies (Israel-West Bank-Gaza) would have to joined in an equitable manner.
There would also have to be legal harmony between the Palestinian and Israeli legal
systems.
But let's be fair. Ambassador Mossberg was having to ad-lib a bit because the power point presentation had not materialized. This article in The Guardian outlines it a bit better.
As for LeVine, he severely criticized the Oslo Accords even calling them "corrupt" at one point. At one point he said, "Don't Palestinians have rights?" and stated that the Israeli government acts like they don't know what they (?) are talking about.
Also, at one point Ambassador Mossberg said that Europe was likely to get more involved in the conflict and that Europeans were shocked by what they had seem from the recent Gaza fighting.
When the q an a came I got the first question, and it went something like this. (It was addressed primarily to Ambassador Mossberg.)
"If either party were to accept this plan they would want to be confident that the authors of the plan were impartial. With all due respect, professor LeVine is an anti-Israeli activist...
At this point Mossberg expressed disagreement and I added that LeVine would probably say that himself. LeVine then said that was not the case and that I had "disrespected" him. I was then allowed to continue with my question.
I continued with the article in question which came from a Swedish blog called Vänstra Stranden (Left Bank). I quoted the author (whom I erroneously thought to be Mossberg) as criticizing a previous article in Svenska Dagbladet by Israeli ambassador to Sweden Isac Bachman who had blamed Hamas for the recent Gaza war and charged that Hamas was using its own population as human shields and wishing for civilian deaths. The author of the Vänstra Stranden article had said there was no evidence that Hamas had used its people for human shields and absolutely none that they wished for civilian deaths. I countered those assertions by quoting reports from international journalists who had witnessed Hamas fighters firing from civilian sites and also a German film crew that filmed Hamas personnel forcing civilians back into buildings they were trying to evacuate after having been warned by Israel that an attack was coming. After being told by LeVine to come to the question instead of making points, I asked why should the Israeli government accept a plan whose authors were biased. Ambassador Mossberg asked for a copy of the article, took a look at it, and passed it back to me saying that he had never written it.
When the event concluded, I approached LeVine and said that I had intended no disrespect. I started to explain that Ambassador Mossberg might want to look into this further, but I was cut off. At this point, with many of his students and other attendees still in the room, a visably angry LeVine began to shout at me. He told me that my writing was "sh--" and he was not embarrassed to say that it was "sh--" in front of the room. He also shouted that if I ever called him "anti-Israel" again, I was going to have a problem-that it was "slander". He finished by saying that I was not qualified to teach at this university and that he didn't want to talk to me-"Goodbye."
Temper, temper.
As I listened to all this, I told him that I was not going to engage in a heated shouting match since it was not the appropriate place. That was true. His own students were standing there, and as a teacher, I was not about to engage in this behavior in front of students.
So I went over to Ambassador Mossberg and told him that we should look further into this article, which I again showed him. This time he took the article which had his name above the text as if he were the author. I said that if he didn't write it, I would apologize for bringing it up. He was very gracious, and we parted on good terms unlike the aforementioned Professor LeVine.
Later, I checked further into the blog and determined that misleading as the post was, it was not Mossberg who wrote the article. If you Google Vänstra Stranden and Mathias Mossberg, you come up with this posting with his name above the text. However, if you Google say, Isac Bachman (the Israeli ambassador to Sweden) and Vänstra Stranden, you get the same result-a page that appears as if Bachman wrote the same article. This is a misleading feature of the blog, but I have no excuses. I thought I had an article written by Mossberg, when in reality, it was written by the blog's editor, Marie Demker. It was my mistake, and I take full responsibility for not checking deeper.
As soon as I found the problem, I sent an explanatory e-mail to Ambassador Mossberg with the appropriate links and repeating my apology. Here is the text of that e-mail:
Dear Ambassador Mossberg, I am the one who brought up the question today at UCI about an article in Vanstra Stranden that bore your name. Upon returning to my office I did further checking into the blog in question and have confirmed that as you stated, you did not write the article. For that I repeat my apology for bringing it up. The reason your name is attached to the article is due to some feature in the blog which can lead to confusion. I originally found the article by Googling your name and came up with an entry from Vanstra Stranden. As you can see from the copy I gave you the page would indicate that you are the author of the article when it is actually Marie Demker the blogger herself. Your name appears also at the bottom in a footnote by Demker that caused the problem. http://vanstrastranden.wordpress.com/tag/mathias-mossberg/ For example, if you Google the name Isac Bachman, the Israeli ambassador to Stockholm, and Vanstra Stranden you will get the same page with his name at the top suggesting he is the author. http://vanstrastranden.wordpress.com/tag/isac-bachman/ I hope that clears up the confusion, and once again I apologize for the error. Best regards, Gary Fouse
As for Professor LeVine, if I was in error in calling him "an anti-Israel activist", perhaps it was due to the time I saw him as part of the Whither the Levant event at UC Irvine in 2009-a veritable one-sided Israel bash.
Or perhaps, it was the time he brought a representative of the Muslim Brotherhood, Ibrahim el Hudaiby to his class in 2008. I was there also.
Or how about this article from Campus Report Online and cross-posted by Campus Watch in 2006?
Or could it be articles like this written by LeVine for Al Jazeera?
Or how about that letter LeVine signed calling for an academic boycott of Israel? No anti-Israel activist there.
I could go on and on, but maybe I just got the wrong impression from all of the above (and much more).
But I will say this: There will be no apology to Professor LeVine. He embarrassed himself in front of his class with his meltdown, and I would hope that the next time he chooses to explode at me he will do it when no students are around. Then we can have a "real discussion."
And as for that Utopian idea of his for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, it strikes me as well, Utopian.
As long as LeVine keeps signing blatant, one-sided petitions supporting boycotts of Israel academic institutions and placing disproportionate blame on Israel for all the problems in the Middle East, his credibility and ideas are not likely to be taken seriously by people who are truly interested in finding a peaceful resolution to this long-standing conflict. He may think his spoken and written words do not make him an anti-Israel activist, but others would disagree.
Joe Biden Buttering Up the Turks
Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com
Hat tip Memri and Janet Ellen Levy
Joe Biden, America's secret diplomatic weapon, is in Turkey this weekend trying to mend fences with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and praising Turkey for its humanitarian aid to Syrian and Iraqi refugees.
"That's a big f*****' deal."
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-30155496
Well, that's all well and good, Mr Biden, but are you discussing US concerns with the rise of religious intolerance in Turkey?
http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/8304.htm
"In addition to statements by government officials, the pro-AKP media regularly accuse Turkey's Jews of "treason,"[2] and other accusations are also levelled, including connecting Jews with the use of Ebola as a biological weapon in "global occupation" that "knows no borders"; in addition, a professor tweeted about sending Jews to Treblinka."
Is that being discussed. Mr Biden?
"At the same time that President Erdogan was denying, in his September 22, 2014 speech at the Council of Foreign Relations, that he or his government were in any way antisemitic, members of his party back home were tweeting praise for Hitler, and shops in Istanbul were displaying signs reading "No Admittance To Jewish Dogs."
On November 9, 2014, a sign reading "This Location To Be Demolished" was hung on the entrance to Istanbul's Neveh Shalom Synagogue; the synagogue has already been the target of two major terrorist attacks in which many congregants at prayer were killed and wounded."
Is that being discussed, Mr. Biden?
"Islamist columnist Ibrahim Tenekeci of the pro-AKP daily Yeni Safak wrote in a July 23, 2014 column titled "Of Men and Jews" (in which he refused to capitalize the term "Jew" except where he quotes another author):[3] "This title, reminiscent of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, belongs to [Islamist author] Nurettin Topcu, not me. Topcu wrote three articles in 1967: 'The Islamic Cause and Judaism,' 'Money and the Jew,' and 'Of Men and Jews.' These articles define jews as the eternal curse of mankind. 'Those that attack to destroy the building of absolute truth,' 'those who reject all moral values,' 'the bloody and sinful hands,' 'the evil that replaces the good' – All these are the jews."
Are these statements by mr ibrahim tenekeci being discussed, Mr. Biden? (Forgive me if I don't capitalize mr. tenekeci's name.)
"Bilecik University Physics Department Head: "Treblinka Will Be Ready Soon; [We Are] Constructing The Railway To Transport Jews At The Moment"
Is that being discussed, Mr. Biden?
Mr. Biden, these are big f****' deals, too. It is time for the US to stop sucking up to Erdogan as he drags his country down the path of radical Islamism.
Obama's Nancy Pelosi Moment in Brisbane
Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com
Hat tip Breitbart and Gateway Pundit
"Himmler? He was just some adviser who never worked on our staff."
As President Obama spoke before the press as part of the G-20 conference in Brisbane, Australia, the subject of Jonathan Gruber came up in a question. Obama tried to downplay Gruber's role in formulating Obamacare.
http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2014/11/16/Obama-Just-Stepped-In-A-Pile-Of-Gruber
"...just some adviser who never worked on our staff."
Not only was this guy paid close to $400,000 for his services, but according to Gruber's account on video, he was in the Oval Office with Obama when the problem of the so-called Cadillac Tax was "worked out".
Nancy Pelosi this past week claimed she didn't know who Gruber was even though she brought up his name, his analysis of Obamacare, and the fact that he was from MIT in 2009. That's all on tape as we now know. Now Obama tells reporters in Brisbane that Gruber was "just some adviser who never worked on our staff".
There is dignity in defying death
Revelation 21:4New American Standard Bible (NASB)
4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”
Death is a part of life. There is no escaping this and it will come to all of us. How death is viewed in this country leaves much to be desired. At least for me it does. Every life is precious or is it? I find it deeply disturbing how casually life is thrown away. When we as a society so easily look the other direction and murder the most vulnerable, the unborn, the elderly, the disabled, we have lost some of our compassion for others and for life itself. PatriotUSA
*******************
Commentary: There’s dignity in defying death
By Christine M. Flowers
The seamless vision of life, as the late
Cardinal Joseph Bernardin once noted, is the only way to ensure
individual dignity. We are only as strong as the weakest links in our
human chain, so the way we treat the young, the sick and the elderly is
the truest bell weather of our evolution as a compassionate society.
Lately, though, that compassion has been lacking,
and I suspect it’s due in no small part to our cavalier attitude toward
unborn life. If you are capable of dehumanizing something at its most
elemental level and packaging it as a wholly dependent appendage of a
woman, it’s a short step from there to seeing older and ailing Americans
as dependent appendages of society. Of course, we don’t put it in
exactly those terms. No, we’re a lot smarter than that, which is how the
terms “pro-choice” and “death with dignity” entered the popular
lexicon. In “Through the Looking Glass,” Humpty Dumpty gives a fairly
good summary of the nihilistic game plan so many of the pro-choice and
pro-euthanasia people subscribe to: “When I use a word, it means just
what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
So when the rights brigade start on about the “right
to choose” and the “right to die” and the “right to be left alone,”
they are asserting dominion over the language that they use to make
their narrow and specific points. But those who oppose abortion are not
generally allowed to call ourselves “pro-life” in the media, as I myself
found out when I once put that term in a column and it miraculously
morphed into “anti-abortion.” Humpty was apparently a social
progressive.
To those of you who kept reading after you heard the
word “abortion,” my thanks. And to reward you for your perseverance, I
will now get to the point.
Recently, a young woman named Brittany Maynard took
her own life. I would have said “killed herself” but that doesn’t fully
express the motivation behind her act. Maynard was suffering from a
terminal form of cancer, and decided that she didn’t want to put herself
or her family through the final months of debilitating pain. I
understand that, of course, and I have some empathy for her predicament
given the fact that my father died a long and lingering death from lung
cancer. It was a time of pain and horror.
What I don’t understand is the way that Maynard
announced to the world, almost as if she were challenging us to evolve
to some higher level of consciousness, that she would take ownership of
her own presence on this earth and its significance. Maynard did not
kill herself. She “took” back what she thought she owned, her life. This
presupposes that her highest obligation was to herself, and that she
was her own “keeper,” so to speak. That is a dangerous point of view,
because it flows directly from the idea that we are all separate,
unconnected islands in this vast ocean of humanity and are ultimately
alone.
This is the same mentality that motivated Ezekiel
Emmanuel to write his notorious essay in the Atlantic, expressing a hope
that he would die by the age of 70 so as not to “burden” society. At
least Emmanuel was considering the impact his life would have on others,
albeit in a very negative way. He didn’t want to upset anyone, so he
made a vow to bow out, stage left, when he became “troublesome” to his
family and friends. I suspect that if he’d asked, those friends and
family would have begged him to complete the contract he’d made with God
and science and keep the machine operating until its natural end. I’m
fairly certain that what he viewed as a potential burden was, for them, a
gift. But that wouldn’t have advanced his almost Darwinian view of
survival.
As someone whose brother took his own life for
reasons that, to this day, we do not know, I am fully aware of the power
of autonomy. Maynard said that she felt less fearful because she could
choose the hour and moment of her death. And as someone whose father was
in excruciating pain and yet raged against the dying of the light, at
the end, I know how strong the survival instinct can be if we don’t
extinguish it with rhetoric about “dignified deaths.”
This past week, folks in Philadelphia heard the
story of a little boy who was beaten to death by his mother and her
boyfriend, an act so vile that even those of us who’ve been jaded by
daily violence had to take a step back in horror. While there is no
direct connection between the evil in a criminal’s soul and the desire
to escape a painful death, both acts exist on the same continuum which
quantifies the value of a life by how much pleasure it gives us.
To me, true dignity lies in cherishing the life that
we are given in custody, whether in our wombs or in ourselves. It
exists even in the face of pain and regret for lost possibilities.
Dylan Thomas wrote “and death shall have no dominion.”
We, the defiant steel links in the human chain, can be proof of that.
— Christine M. Flowers is a lawyer and columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News.
Tags: Life, Abortion, Euthanasia, Margaret Sanger, Eugenics, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!
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